BOYS LACROSSE: Pirates plunder 'Dogs' debut

Playing its first game as a varsity program, the Rockland High boys lacrosse team forged its first-ever lead but could not notch its first win, falling 14-2 to visiting Hull.

Jay N. MillerFor The Patriot Ledger

ROCKLAND – Just a couple of minutes into Rockland High School’s first-ever boys lacrosse game, junior captain Colin Sheehan scored the first goal in Bulldogs’ history, giving the home team a 1-0 advantage over visiting Hull before a surprisingly good-sized crowd of fans.

Reality reared its head after that, however, as Hull pumped home four goals before the first quarter was over, dominated thereafter and went on to post a 14-2 victory.

The Pirates (1-1) got four goals apiece from sophomores Ian MacDonald and Anthony Marcella, as well as three goals from Shea Jones.

Sheehan scored his second goal about three minutes into the second period, but Hull netted five in a row to go into the half on top, 9-2. The Pirates, who had dropped their opener 11-8 to Whitman-Hanson, took advantage of a multitude of Rockland penalties, but Marcella also scored shorthanded for Hull’s eighth goal.

Hull scored five unanswered goals in the second half, despite Rockland netminder Luke McCullough making a dozen saves while facing almost constant pressure.

But for a varsity debut, with most of their upperclassmen new to the sport, the Bulldogs knew the learning curve would be steep.

“We’ve had just about two weeks of practice, eight sessions in all,” said Rockland coach Dave Taylor. “We’re down a couple of starters due to injury, and we’re a young team, with several players coming right off the ice from hockey.

“I thought we did all right at even-strength, and our goalkeeper did a good job under a lot of pressure. But penalties killed us. We must have played man-down for 20 minutes today, and Hull made it hurt.”

Rockland has had four years of youth league programs developing lacrosse talent, and that means this year’s freshmen have had up to four years’ previous experience. Most of the rest of the team, however, is learning the sport on the fly.

“Those freshman from our youth leagues are the only kids we have who have picked up a stick before this year,” said Taylor. “But, granted, we also have some of the school’s best athletes from other sports – a lot from hockey, some from wrestling, football and even track.

“We're being anchored by our three senior defensemen, and Colin Sheehan, our junior captain, played pretty tight last year (when the Bulldogs were a club team) and knew he had to step it up even more this year. Colin is one of our kids who’s just rolled off the ice from hockey and has had literally almost no time to transition.”

Rockland, which hosts Cape Cod Tech today, did have some performances which stood out, according to Taylor. He singled out attackmen Brian McCullough, Matt Dunn and co-captain Pierce McNally, who also did a good job with faceoffs, and defenders Ethan Rooney, Fab Rosa and freshman Mo Yousseff.

Across the field, Hull has had lacrosse for about eight years now and has local youth programs feeding talent into the high school. The Pirates are coming off back-to-back playoff appearances, but 2014 looks like a rebuilding project.

“We only have one senior player, so we are real, real young,” said Pirates coach Chris Weber. “We’ve had varsity lacrosse for about eight years, and we’re still working on building up our feeder programs. But the bigger factor is just that Hull is such a small town, and we only have 300 kids in the whole high school. For us to have 24 boys out for our team is a big deal, because, of course, we’re competing for athletes with the baseball and track teams.”

Hull is developing two freshman goalkeepers, in Andrew Demetrious and Frankie Prestia, who split the game Wednesday, each playing a half. Another positive sign for the Pirates was six different players in the scoring column as Joe Coffey, Morgan Leeber and Shane Weber supplemented the Marcella/Jones/MacDonald contributions by adding a goal each.

“I like our young talent,” said Chris Weber. “Andrew comes right out of U-15 lacrosse, where he played goalie, and Frankie just picked up the position over the winter, and both of them have showed lots of potential. Our attack had a lot of balance today, and we worked well on the man-advantage.

“I also think my son, Shane Weber, won quite a few ground balls, and, nepotism aside, he played a very good game. Our advantage on ground balls was a very big factor for us today.”

Never miss a story

Choose the plan that's right for you.
Digital access or digital and print delivery.